“One of the shuttles has been diverted,” a Marine called.  “They’ll take the aliens up into space.”

“Good,” Parnell said.  He switched his suit’s speakers on, then addressed the aliens.  “Can you understand me?”

The aliens seemed to flinch backwards, but said nothing.  It was impossible to tell if they were playing dumb or if they genuinely didn't understand.  Their bodies were still quivering faintly; fear, Marcus wondered, or was he trying to interpret their actions in light of human body language?  There was no way to understand the meaning of their motions.

“Maybe the POWs know how to speak to them,” he said, out loud.

“I doubt it,” Parnell replied.  “The aliens would be fools to let the POWs learn their language.”

Markus smiled.  “I had a friend who had no gift for languages at all, but married a Malay girl,” he said.  “He insisted she talked to him in English.  Maybe the aliens think the same way.”

He felt his smile widen as the shuttle swept down from high overhead, eventually coming to rest on the sandy beach.  Despite over three hundred years of effort, the human race had yet to develop a viable AI ... and without one, automated language translators were fundamentally unreliable.  And that was when human languages were taken into account.  Who knew just how complex an alien language would be?  And the POWs would have ample motives to learn how to speak to their captors.  How else could they tell the aliens they were in pain?

But if they had been drugged, he asked himself silently, how would they know they were in pain?

The aliens started to produce hissing noises as soon as the Marines started to prod them towards the shuttle.  Markus wondered if they were trying to talk to their captors, but no matter how hard he listened he couldn't make out any understandable words.  He quickly checked to make sure that it was all being recorded – later, perhaps, he could get a translation – and then followed the protesting aliens as they marched towards the shuttle.  One of them broke free and ran, with a curious waddling motion, towards the water.  A Marine shouted after him, then shot the alien in the leg.  The alien toppled over and lay still.

Markus swallowed hard as the alien was recovered by two Marines, then carried bodily into the shuttle.  The remaining aliens didn't show any further reluctance to move; they inched into the shuttle, then sat on the deck.  Markus watched the Marines secure them as best as they could, then sit back and wait for liftoff.  Moments later, the shuttle shuddered and lurched into the air.